This invention relates to a method of transmitting and/or storing data in digitized form, suitable in particular for transmitting image data between two telecommunication stations connected through a cable; and also to a system for the application of the method.
In the past, many techniques have been developed for the transmission and/or storage of data. For the transmission of data, electrical lines can be used or telecommunication cables and beam transmitters if the data is to be transferred over large distances.
The data transmission is often effected in analog form, as is the case with telephone connections, but may also take place in digitized form, as is the case, for example, with data transmission by telex or within a computer system or a network of computers.
The transmission and/or storage of image data, such as, for example, television signals, presents particular problems, as involving huge amounts of data per unit of time, so that a transmission channel of very large capacity (bandwidth) and/or a memory of very large capacity is needed.
Thus, for example, it is not possible to transmit image data through a normal telephone line in a practicable manner, unless the images do not change, or hardly so. As a consequence, the design of videophone systems is not a problem technically, it is true, but the practical application of videophony is prevented because existing telephone connections have an insufficient transmission, capacity.